


Home is Where the Heart Is

by RocknVaughn



Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: Drama, Episode 3x07, Episode Fix-it, F/M, Fluff and Angst, canon AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 13:15:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15316287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RocknVaughn/pseuds/RocknVaughn
Summary: Even though Leo is desperate to get to the Railyard to save Max from Anatole, he also cannot leave things the way they are between him and Mattie.A little reaching out on his part, and a little understanding on hers, and their parting takes on a whole other meaning.





	Home is Where the Heart Is

 

 

~

 

Mattie sat, dumbfounded at what her father had just told her. “Anatole...but, he saved Leo.”

Leo’s expression turned grim. “Max trusts him.”

“I have to get a message to the Railyard. We have to warn him.”

“No,” Leo said firmly. “I’ll go there myself.”

“No, Leo, no,” Joe interjected, clearly not catching the undertone between the young man and his daughter. “You’re human now. If something kicks off, you’d be more vulnerable than the rest.”

Leo turned and looked at Mattie, his eyes boring into her with their intensity.

Finally, Mattie gave in to what Leo was trying to tell her without words. “Look after yourself,” she told him dismissively, reluctantly giving him the permission he sought to leave her. She stood and scooped up her mother’s keys from the dining table. To her father, she said, “I think I know where Mum might be,” and left without a backward glance.

Leo sat frozen, caught between what he should do and what he--irrationally--wanted to do. He couldn’t leave things between he and Mattie like this. After all, Joe was right. If something did happen at the Railyard, the statistical likelihood of his survival against a synth was poor. Without even considering what he was going to do or say, Leo stood and hurried toward the door. He had to catch Mattie before she left. It was imperative.  

Joe started to waylay him, so Leo put up a hand to stop whatever it was Joe was going to say. “I’ll be right back,” he said over his shoulder as he hurried to the still open front door. Leo got the passenger door of the van closed just as Mattie turned the key in the ignition.

She turned and looked at him with more than a little exasperation. “Leo, what? You’ve got what you wanted...a valid reason to fuck the hell off. So go, take it!”

“No. That’s not what I want.”

Mattie huffed, turned the key again, and the engine died. “Then what _do_ you want?”

“I…” Leo paused for a long time, considering. “I don’t know. But I know that I don’t want to lose you, Mattie. It's just that...after everything I learned about my father, I’m pretty terrified about the prospect of being one to someone else.”

“Because you’re afraid you’ll be like him,” Mattie reasoned.

“Yes.”

Mattie leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes with a sigh. “Let me tell you a story,” she said finally, “a story about my Mum.”

“Okay.”

“When she was a girl, she had a younger brother named Tom. One day, while she was watching him, a terrible thing happened. She‘d been talking to a neighbor and her attention was diverted. Only for a moment, but that was enough: Tom’s ball had rolled into the street and, without thinking, he ran out after it. He’d emerged from between two parked cars and right into traffic. The driver hadn’t been able to stop in time and Tom died.”

Leo could imagine the crippling guilt that Laura must have felt, because there had been times that he’d seen that same emotion mirrored on Mia’s face after his drowning...but only when she thought he wasn’t looking.

Mattie rolled her head in Leo’s direction and looked at him. “Her mother blamed my Mum for his death. Said awful things to her; treated her like garbage. Told my Mum that she’d done it on purpose and that she wished she’d died instead of Tom. It was awful.”

Empathy bloomed in Leo’s chest at hearing about Laura’s sad past. “But it wasn’t her fault. It was an accident.”

“Yes, but my Grandma didn’t see it that way. On top of the guilt she already felt, Grandma punished Mum for it every hour of every day. When my Mum left for Uni, she never went back. She told everyone that both her parents were dead and she was an only child because it was easier. Mum never told anyone the real truth...not even my dad, until three years ago.”

“My Mum lived with that guilt, with my Grandma’s words of blame and disgust, her whole life. But yet, even after all that she’d done to her, Mum went back to see her a few years ago. You see, she and I had been going through a rough patch and she feared that she was becoming like her, like _her_ Mum. But she wasn’t like her; she never had been. Even though she had this awful, horrible mother, she’d always loved us. She always tried to make us feel loved and important, and she succeeded.”

Mattie turned in the seat and grasped Leo’s hands in hers. “She had just as horrible a parent as you did, and I’m sure she was just as worried as you are now. But she didn’t turn out anything like her, and neither would you, because you know how to love people.”

Leo wasn’t so sure. “Do I?”

“Of course you do! You love Mia, and Max, and Niska and Fred.”

“And you.”

Mattie tilted her head a little and gave Leo a shy grin. “Yeah?”

“I mean, I’ve never felt this kind of love before, but...yeah, I think so.”

Mattie squeezed Leo’s fingers in hers. “Then don’t worry about the rest, yeah? It’ll work itself out. We don’t have to decide anything right now. There’s time.”

“Mattie,” Leo said softly, “I still have to go to the Railyard. I have to go and help Max, if I can.”

The corner of Mattie’s lips quirked up for a moment and she nodded. “I know you do. You wouldn’t be Leo Elster if you weren’t rushing headlong into danger somewhere.”

Leo tried not to grin and failed. “Hey! I resent that remark.”

“Resemble, you mean.”

“That, too.”

Their smiles faded into awareness as they leaned into each other until their lips touched. Leo cradled Mattie’s face between his palms and she slid her arms around his neck, pulling him close. When they finally parted, Leo leaned his forehead against Mattie’s in the way he might with Mia or Max. “I’m sorry about freaking out earlier,” he whispered. “It was just...a lot.”

“It’s okay,” Mattie breathed back. “Sometimes it’s hard to remember that you’ve only been out of the coma for a couple of weeks.”

“It seems like longer, doesn’t it?” Leo agreed.

“A _lot_ longer.”

Leo looked up, having caught motion out of the corner of his eye, but shrugged when he didn’t see anything amiss. “I really should go,” he sighed.

“Well, why don’t you go get what you need and I’ll drive you to the train. It’ll be faster.”

“Good idea,” Leo agreed and pecked a kiss to Mattie’s cheek. “Be right back.”

 

~

 

Leo was not expecting to find Joe standing just inside the door, his arms akimbo and wearing a frown. “What the hell was that out there?” Joe demanded of Leo, pointing imperiously out the window toward the family van parked at the kerb.

Leo’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “What was what?”

“You,” Joe poked a finger into Leo’s chest. “Kissing my daughter. How long has that been going on?”

If Joe had a problem with the two of them kissing, then Leo was afraid to find out what Joe would do when Mattie told him about the baby. “Um, about two weeks?”

“Oh, I see,” Joe said, crossing his arms across his chest. “But yet, you two are sharing a room. What else have you been sharing, eh?”

Leo backed up a step, wanting desperately to nip this conversation in the bud. “With all due respect, Joe, but could we perhaps discuss this later? I really need to get to the Railyard to help Max and Sam.”

The mention of Sam seemed to defuse Joe instantly. “Oh yeah, yeah, right. Of course.”

He stepped aside to allow Leo access to the stairs, which he took two at a time. He grabbed his backpack and hastily tossed in a couple of shirts and a change of pants. While Leo set his pack on the bed to close it, a picture on the nightstand captured his attention. It was a print of one of Mattie’s selfies: in this one, Leo was nuzzling against Mattie’s cheek with his nose while she grinned widely for the camera. Picking up the frame, Leo traced his fingertip down the glass covering their likenessess. Mattie looked so happy and open, and it made Leo smile to see it.  It was a look that she needed to wear more often, and he intended to put it there as often as possible when he got back. _If_ he got back.

Leo reopened the tie on his pack, tucked the picture inside and then slung the strap around one shoulder. Joe met him at the bottom of the stairs. “Leo, if you see Sam...give him this for me, will you?” Joe handed him a folded piece of paper.

“I will.” Leo slipped the paper into his inside coat pocket.

“And be careful, yeah?”

“I’ll try.”

 

~

 

When he got back into the van, Mattie asked, “What took you so long?”

Leo shrugged his pack off and replied wryly, “I guess your father takes exception to my kissing you.”

Mattie clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her amusement. Her shoulders shook with silent laughter.

“It’s not _that_ funny,” Leo groused.

“Yes, it is,” Mattie replied, turning the key in the ignition. “Welcome to dads who care.”

“Touché.”

 

~

 

It was a short but quiet ride to the station. When they arrived, neither said anything for a moment, but then they both tried to speak at the same time.

“I--”

“Leo--”

“You go first,” Leo said.

“I was just going to say...Just do what you have to do. But promise me that you’ll stay alive, so that when you’re done, you can come back home.”

_You can come back home._ Home was a word Leo hadn’t dared think of--let alone talk about--in so long. Even when he’d had a place to live, it hadn’t been a home, no matter how much Mia and the others had tried to make it such for him.

But now that she had said it...Leo couldn’t help but picture what _home_ with Mattie would be like:  snuggles and stolen kisses in the morning, Mattie reading one part of the paper while he read another at breakfast, splashing each other while doing the dinner dishes, professing their love and passion for each other before going to sleep. And perhaps...a family, too. _Their_ family. Something heretofore ignored and neglected, something previously cast aside as impossible, slotted into place inside of Leo and he smiled.

“I’ll do everything in my power to come home to you, Mattie. I promise,” he vowed.

Relief flooded Mattie’s features and she smiled back. “You’d better.”

 


End file.
